leave them to it

[kazmcc]

Hey Kazzmcc

Have a look at the natural beekeeping trust or biobees
There are lots of alternative methods and I think you can learn from both "ways" and take the bits that suit you (and your bees)

Love Clare

Thanks Clare, I'll have a look.

 

[VEG]

Lets face it we are all just beekeepers if someone has the need to call themselves a "natural beekeeper" to make them feel better then so be it. It doesnt nessasarily mean they are doing the bees any more good than a "conventional beekeeper".
I keep bees the way I like others keep them a different way, and thats all it is "a diferent way".
Its just a play on words in the end.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Its just a play on words in the end.

I agree...natural,green, organic, whatever, nothing but a load of bullshit.

 

[Tom Bick]

Lets face it we are all just beekeepers if someone has the need to call themselves a "natural beekeeper" to make them feel better then so be it. It doesnt nessasarily mean they are doing the bees any more good than a "conventional beekeeper".
I keep bees the way I like others keep them a different way, and thats all it is "a diferent way".
Its just a play on words in the end.

I think this hits the nail on its head we are all beekeepers.

 

[TBRNoTB]

to the floor.....

there are far more thickerati shoving the throttle of the juggernaut heading for ecological armaggeddon to the floor......

I some times accuse the other half of being to the right of Ghengis Khan! but isn't that just a wee bit to the left of 'Swampy'?
Regards
TBRNoTB

 

[Geoff]

I think most people here are middle of the road to varying degrees and to say one type or another is more natural or greener is bullshit. I will nail my colours to the mast here. I am regarded as a bit of an environmentalist ( it made my day when a stupid, pig ignoramous of a workman used it thinking I would regard it as an insult) I also grow as much of my food organically as i possibly can and started keeping chickens cause I was unhappy about the life for commercial flocks.
But I don't see any conflict with that and keeping bees in a commercial type hive with regular inspections and varroa treatments. Natural beekeeping is keeping bees in a log, or skep and then ripping the nest apart to get at the honey. Well to be honest no beekeeping is natural cause you are putting them in an artificial environment. So the term itself is b****ks. Some seem to think that their method is more ethical in some strange way, as if they know what bees think is best for them.
As I see it i provide my bees with a nice hive and I can give them more room when needed. I help them cope with varroa. I feed then when they might need it. It seems a fair deal to take some of the surplus honey. Natural swarming often leads to disaster for bees nowadays. Much better for bees to have it controlled. The bees instincts are to perpetuate their genes successfully. Funnily enough that is what I want them to do as well. So I have mating hives and nuc hives ready to make their increase more successful and i have feeders to get the new colonies off to a flying start.
Sometimes some species have a better time of it by being domesticated. When i inspect my bees they don't usually seem to fussed. A few might fly up but most just seem to carry on - though I don't hang about. I just look for what i need, to make sure they are Ok and close them up.
And the thing is I do seem to care about my bees and my queens. It is not just about honey. When I look in a colony and see frames of sealed brood from top to bottom I get really pleased for them. I do like having big colonies and the bees always seem content then as well.

 

[Skyhook]

Its just a play on words in the end.

I agree...natural,green, organic, whatever, nothing but a load of bullshit.

Ummm...not really. Think silent spring here. Lets not forgot that back in the good old 50's and 60's, technology could do no wrong- with some fairly dire consequences. Some of the 'hippy rubbish' that resulted as a reaction to that has now become mainstream eg better regulation of pesticides, better insulation of houses etc etc.

I agree there is a lot of bullshit talked- but don't let that blind you to the fact that under the media hype there is often a kernel of truth, often worth digging out.

 

[Dishmop]

Natural. Nature. Would there be such things as beekeepers?

 

[Brosville]

To quote myself from 2 pages back............( I do wish people would READ the thread, and respond to what's actually been written..........)

"As for "natural beekeeping", it's a misnomer, but it's what the sort of beekeeping I do is now called (as pedants will cheerfully leap out of the woodwork yelling "no beekeeping is natural") - so what should we call it?
"Less invasive beekeeping" ,"Foundation-free beekeeping","Bee whispering"?........

I do not choose the title of "natural", it is what a certain style of beekeeping has become known as through "popular usage".

I've already explained that I have an environmental conscience, and am not ashamed of doing my best to actually try to "do my bit".

Back in days of yore, nearly all egg-producing chickens were regularly kept in battery houses, had their beeks painfully burned back to stop them pecking their neighbours in the atrocious conditions, and were kept alive in the deliberately overheated housing (they eat less!) by a cocktail of coccidiostats, and broad-spectrum antibiotics in the "feed" which also contained chemical colourants to give the yolk a "sunny" colour, and (sic) "DPM" (dried poultry manure).......... In those days, when I was starting up a free-range "no chemicals" farm, I was told that I was a fool, a drippy hippy, was being cruel in not caging the birds or debeaking them, and that if I insisted on not feeding the "usual" chemicals, they'd all die of disease which would spread to responsible battery operations in the area
(the local NFU rep, who was shown the door)

And on one noted occasion learnt of the misuse of the English language with a feed rep.......... "Right, so you can supply me with a feed with no antibiotics or coccidiostats?" -"Yes sir" - at which point he produced a plastic fan of colour samples, ranging from pale yellow to bright orange- "take your pick of yolk colours" - "would these be chemically produced?" - "yessir"
"do you have natural colourants" - "yessir - canthaxanthins!" - (having got wise to their weasellisms) - "from where are these canthaxanthins derived?"
-"ohh, they're synthesised sir"................."how come you're calling them "natural" then.....?"- "under the relevant legislation, if it's a "clone" of a naturally occurring substance, we're allowed to call it natural"...............

Having given the birds good housing, clean food, water and regularly rotated land to range over, we had virtually no disease, high production, and it was a pleasure to work with them. My only worry was keeping clear of the battery operations that were rife with disease........

When setting out to keep bees some "know it all" told me it was "impossible without chemicals, and that I was a fool to even try they'd all die of disease which would spread to responsible beekeepers bees in the area

 

[Poly Hive]

Bross... dear chap.......... they winna read books, and you expect them to go back and read the whole thread........... bless your innocence.

PH

 

[Dishmop]

Bros.
Assuming your post was in reference to my post, I did not mean it to be in relation to anything you or anybody else has said. One could say the same about horses, dogs, cats, ducks, budgies etc. They would all just be there, doing what they do. Until certain plumbers decide to eat them...

 

[Brosville]

not designed as a response to your post (I was typing it while you posted yours), ....

 

[Dishmop]

not designed as a response to your post (I was typing it while you posted yours), ....

So I can continue my day with a clear conscience then.

 

[johnandyrob]

What about A.F.B and E.F.B do people with warre hives Know their bees have it and do they do some thing about it or just leave it to sort its self out risking spreading it to other colonies

Brosville i wish people would just answer questions with out getting hot under the collar sorry for missing the question mark off it wasnt an attack on anything just a question to get an informed answer thats how we learn

 

[Brosville]

I merely remarked (not necessarily in your direction) that several inaccurate points were being raised that had been fully addressed earlier in the thread, with a polite request that the actual link explaining them was followed - as my post on the previous page pointed out, on another point I had actually agreed that "natural beekeeping" was a misnomer, and yet was still being accused of everything short of eating babies for daring to choose to be known as a "natural beekeeper"..........

 

[johnandyrob]

I merely remarked (not necessarily in your direction) that several inaccurate points were being raised that had been fully addressed earlier in the thread, with a polite request that the actual link explaining them was followed - as my post on the previous page pointed out, on another point I had actually agreed that "natural beekeeping" was a misnomer, and yet was still being accused of everything short of eating babies for daring to choose to be known as a "natural beekeeper"..........

You should know by now what a mere remark can get you accused of on here

 

[Brosville]

There's only one way to deal with it - laugh!........... I know full well that to even dare mention a top bar hive to many people conjures the picture of a tattooed eco-warrior with lots of facial jewellery and dreadlocks, who macrames his own muesli, and is politically somewhere to the left of Marx..........
(Has noone heard of Zac Goldsmith?) - it's not JUST "lefties" with a green conscience -
I'll also cheerfully confess to a liking for our much-maligned heir to the throne - and he's (shock, horror, probe!) - a royalist..........

 

[Stiffy]

Hey Kazzmcc

Have a look at the natural beekeeping trust or biobees
There are lots of alternative methods and I think you can learn from both "ways" and take the bits that suit you (and your bees)

Love Clare

Why not go the whole way and become a 'real' natural beekeeper. Drill a large hole in every tree and wait for a swarm to arrive ....it won’t take long for a swarm to arrive if everyone follows this method.

Oh! and you might annoy the lazy good for nothing 'swampy' spongers as their trees will then be un-climbable, but on the bright side this might stop being an embarrassment to people who really care about the countryside and wildlife.

The majority of beekeepers manage their hives perfectly well and don’t have any delusion of grandeur about being better beekeepers by following a 'new' more caring method.

Cheers
S

 

[Brosville]

"and don’t have any delusion of grandeur" - you mean like some "conventional" beekeepers visibly have as they do their Calvinist preacher impressions?

"Ours is the one and only true faith, and non-believers will be cast into the outer darkness, and called names" (and no, we don't deem it necessary to actually know anything about other ways of doing things, as WE'RE RIGHT)

 

[Stiffy]

I'll also cheerfully confess to a liking for our much-maligned heir to the throne - and he's (shock, horror, probe!) - a royalist..........

You should try being one of his tenants or working with him as I have and do. You will then see how bxxxxy 'green' the big eared ***** is when it means he has to put his hand in his pocket instead of bleeding The Duchy dry........sorry Bros but you really do talk some drivel sometimes

On that note I'm off to treat me bees with the wicked thymol